Despite being nestled amid lush greenery that slowly inches its way closer…to the house, the walking path, the garbage burn pit…my job is actually encased in cement. Cement walls and floors and an imposing enclosure engulfing it all; a dingy wall – with once-bright pictures depicting safer sex and mosquito nets to prevent malaria. It is the Ministry of Health.

I’ve actually only been once. Although my work is with them I seldom interact with the ministry, and when I do – to date – it has not been in that building

My work so far is a kind of no woman’s land so far. The job description described my role as a monitoring and evaluating coordinator for a national training for clinicians. hundreds of them, with varying degrees of medical knowledge and skill because during the war – the crisis – it was hard to study, hard to keep track, but the need for clinician s never slacked.

Unable to recall everyone, to test and certify those already practicing, the Ministry -instead- pulled together the basic package of knowledge that is essential